Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/453014
LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 2.15 15 Photo by Chris Witzke THE PORTRAIT Narwhal! Haunted! Griff's new restaurant Black cops speak out To 2001 And More! Waiter Levert Bizzle Where bourbon comes from 21Qs 21 questions RELEASES PRESS THIS MONTH IN and other junk JUST SAYIN' BLOODLINE BUILDING thebit bit e BAILEY the FLASH BACK WE LOVE arry Elliott shows me a LEGO Abraham Lincoln, a stack of Lincoln biographies, an educational Civil War map, a miniature log cabin, a penny bigger than my hand. But I mostly ignore them and study the 63-year-old — stovepipe hat, gray-fecked beard, $2,000 period-specifc black suit, size-14 (same as Abe) feet resting under the kitchen table like battleships awaiting presidential orders. It's hard to miss 6-foot-4 Abraham Lincoln. Elliott says his great-great-great-great- grandmother delivered baby Abe. "She was the frst to see his hiney-butt," he says. In his big house off Brownsboro Road near the Gene Snyder, Elliott sips coffee from a mug with Abe's face on it and says, "I didn't want to go." It was August 2003. Elliott's wife Mary (yep, Mary) found a Lincoln look-alike contest in Hodgenville, Kentucky, where Lincoln and Elliott were born. Elliott expected three Lincolns in Hodgenville. There were 19. He hadn't noticed the three-minute speech requirement and didn't yet know his favorite Lincoln quote: "It is better to remain silent and thought of as a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." He took the stage and removed all doubt. He fnished dead last. He came home, studied. He has won frst, second or third every year since and is now on the board of directors of the Association of Lincoln Presenters. He and his wife impersonate Lincoln and Mary Todd, performing at schools, retirement communities. Elliott says he's booked almost every day in February. Lincoln was born Feb. 12. "I'll be 206 this coming birthday," Elliott says. — Dylon Jones Larry Elliott Abraham Lincoln Impersonator L